Investing from the Gulf and the Arab world: regulation, tax

The sites of Kuwait's regulator and exchange and that of the AMMC could not be reached; there we rely on statements by a Kuwaiti broker and the Casablanca exchange.

In the UAE several brokers from our comparison name a company of their own. The zone alone says little; what a company may do depends on its licence.

• DFSA (DIFC): IG Limited (F001780), XTB MENA Limited (F006316), Pepperstone Financial Services (DIFC) Ltd (F004356) and Swissquote MEA. Plus500AE Ltd (F005651) holds a category 4 licence and, in its own words, may not hold client assets or client money; Axi's DIFC branch says the same. Tickmill has only a representative office in the DIFC (F007663).
• FSRA (ADGM): eToro (ME) Limited (permission 220073) and Ava Trade Middle East Ltd (190018). eToro does not say which company onboards UAE residents.
• CMA: Capital Com MENA Securities Trading L.L.C. (20200000176) and Plus500Gulf Securities LLC (20200000232). On Pepperstone's UAE site the products are issued by Pepperstone Markets Limited in the Bahamas; its UAE company is licensed for introduction and consultation only.
• No local licence: Saxo's MENA site offers the services of Saxo Bank A/S in Denmark; its Dubai representative office provides no financial services. Swissquote MEA does not deal with retail clients in CFDs or forex; these come from Swissquote Bank SA in Switzerland.

For Saudi Arabia we found no broker from our comparison with a CMA licence. For the other seven countries we did not check this broker by broker.

Brokers say this in different ways, and not every statement is a confirmation:

For one of its companies, Bybit's list excludes "only Dubai". Other brokers in our comparison open accounts only for residents elsewhere, for example moomoo (seven countries, none of them Arab), Freetrade (UK), Wealthsimple (Canada) and Nordnet (EU, EEA, Switzerland).

The US withholds 30% on US dividends paid to foreign persons unless a treaty provides less. The IRS treaty list (updated 3 January 2026) has no treaty with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman or Jordan; residents there face 30%. Egypt and Morocco have treaties: the IRS treaty table (Rev. May 2023) gives 15% on dividends for both, and 5% (Egypt) or 10% (Morocco) for qualifying direct holdings.

Example: on USD 1,000 of US dividends, the US withholds USD 300 from a UAE resident, and USD 150 from a resident of Egypt or Morocco at the treaty rate. How the treaty rate is claimed with form W-8BEN is explained in Reclaiming US withholding tax: W-8BEN and DA-1, written for Switzerland.

We could read official texts only for the UAE and Oman; the rest comes from advisory firms, and for two countries they contradict each other.

• UAE: under Cabinet Decision No. 49 of 2023 (in force since 1 June 2023), a natural person's personal investment income is not a business activity subject to corporate tax, provided it needs no licence and is not a commercial business.
• Saudi Arabia: according to PwC, no individual income tax scheme. On zakat, see below.
• Qatar: according to PwC, an individual's gains on securities are exempt unless the securities belong to a taxable activity; dividends from taxed or tax-exempt profits are not taxable.
• Kuwait and Bahrain: according to PwC, no personal income tax.
• Oman: the personal income tax was issued by Royal Decree 56/2025. According to PwC it applies from 1 January 2028, at 5% on annual income above OMR 42,000 and on residents' worldwide income; how it treats gains and dividends we did not read.
• Egypt: unresolved. PwC still gives 10% on residents' gains on EGX-listed shares; according to Deloitte, Law No. 151 of 2026 made them not subject to tax. Gains on foreign shares are taxed at the income tax rates, according to PwC, if Egypt is the centre of the person's activity.
• Jordan: unresolved; PwC's page on individuals contradicts itself on gains from listed shares. Dividends from Jordanian companies are exempt for individuals, according to PwC.
• Morocco: according to PwC, 15% on gains from listed shares; according to Upsilon, 11.25% withholding on dividends in 2026 and 10% from 2027.

In Saudi Arabia, the Implementing Regulations for Zakat Collection (amended on 3 April 2025) list who is subject to them. The only natural person they name is a "Resident Saudi person, who practices an Activity under a license"; GCC nationals treated like Saudis count as Saudi. Private portfolios are not mentioned, so we state neither a duty nor an exemption. For the other countries we found no official statement on zakat on investment portfolios. Zakat and the purification of income are covered in Islamic investing with a broker.

• Saudi Arabia: we found no general compensation scheme. The CMA reports three compensation funds for those affected by capital-market violations, which benefited more than 20,000 investors.
• Bahrain: the CBB protects deposits and unrestricted investment accounts of individuals up to BD 20,000, with separate conventional and Islamic funds. This covers bank accounts, not securities accounts.
• Egypt: an investor protection fund covers non-commercial risks from the activities of securities companies (decree 1764/2004); its 2006 statute set the limit at EGP 100,000 "for every security". Whether that limit still applies we could not confirm.
• UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Morocco: we found no official source on a compensation scheme for brokerage clients. That does not mean there is none.

• UAE: the DFM reports 1.25 million investors at the end of 2025, 97,394 of them new during the year (84% from abroad). Institutional investors made up 71% of trading, foreign investors 51% of traded value; total traded value was AED 174 billion.
• Saudi Arabia: about 161,000 international investors at the end of 2025; more than 1.06 million investors benefited from FinTech offerings, after 789,800 a year earlier. At the beginning of 2026 the CMA adopted the rule opening the Main Market to all categories of non-resident foreign investors.
• Egypt: in 2025 individuals executed 68% of transactions on the EGX; about 299,100 new investors joined, 30% more than in 2024 (EGX figures as published by Mondo Visione).
• Jordan: on 25 October 2026 the central depository SDC counted 747,046 individual investors out of 755,282 investors in total.
• Oman: the home page of the depository MCD showed 584,103 registered investor accounts, without a date.
• Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Morocco: no official figure found.

• The DFM's Fatwa and Shari'a Supervisory Board issued a standard for issuing and trading shares in 2008 and revised it in 2013 and 2018; an addendum of 2 February 2023 repealed two paragraphs.
• The Qatar Stock Exchange runs the QE Al Rayan Islamic Index, reviewed twice a year.
• The EGX33 Shariah Index holds 33 companies selected under a method approved by a Shariah Supervisory Board chaired by Dr. Amr El-Wardani; each is capped at 15%.
• The Muscat Stock Exchange publishes a list of "Shariah Compliant Companies" based on a third party's data and disclaims responsibility for its accuracy.
• The Amman Stock Exchange has a sukuk segment; Bahrain Bourse's online service is open to conventional and, in the exchange's words, Shariah-compliant institutions.
• In the DIFC, Baraka says it holds a DFSA Islamic Window endorsement under its own Shariah Supervisory Board and that its screening data is not a fatwa; Sarwa (ADGM) says it holds no such endorsement.

These are statements by exchanges and firms, not ours. What brokers say about interest, securities lending and screening is in Islamic investing with a broker and the overview of Islamic investing.

Locally licensed providers we have not rated include Sarwa (FSRA) and Baraka (DFSA) in the UAE, Al Rajhi Capital (CMA licence 07068-37) and SNB Capital (37-06046) in Saudi Arabia, and Thndr in Egypt, whose brokerage company says it is regulated by the FRA. Naming them is not a recommendation. More on the country pages: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco.

• Which company of eToro, Pepperstone, Capital.com or Interactive Brokers onboards residents of which country.
• Official tax texts for Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, including Egypt's Laws No. 151 and 153 of 2026.
• The registers of the DFSA, FSRA, QFMA and AMMC, and figures for ADX and Nasdaq Dubai.
• Morocco's exchange-control rules for investing abroad, which may decide whether a foreign broker can be used at all.

• IRS: NRA withholding; treaties A to Z; Tax Treaty Table 1; dividends to nonresident aliens
• UAE: CMA; Cabinet Decision No. 49 of 2023; DFM 2025; DFM Sharia standard; Baraka; Sarwa
• Saudi Arabia: CMA, annual report 2025; ZATCA; PwC; Al Rajhi Capital; SNB Capital
• Qatar: QFCRA; QFMA; PwC; QSE index review
• Kuwait: Oula Wasata; PwC
• Bahrain: CBB; deposit protection; Bahrain Trade; PwC
• Oman: FSA; Tax Authority; PwC; MSX; MCD
• Egypt: FRA; investor protection fund; PwC; Deloitte; EGX33; EGX 2025; Thndr
• Jordan: JSC; ASE; SDC; PwC
• Morocco: Bourse de Casablanca; PwC; Upsilon
• Brokers: Interactive Brokers; Trading 212; eToro: licence, swap-free; Capital.com: UAE, swap-free; Pepperstone: UAE, swap-free; IG; XTB; Saxo; Swissquote; Plus500: UAE, agreement; AvaTrade; Axi; Tickmill; BlackBull Markets; Bybit; Coinbase; moomoo; Freetrade; Wealthsimple; Nordnet

This article is for information only and is not investment or tax advice.